On October 15-16, 2009, over 100 educators gathered to discuss global education issues at Coverdell World Wise Schools’ 20th anniversary conference in Washington, D.C. Three keynote speakers addressed the challenges of educating students for a flattened world, and a panel of practitioners discussed their innovative applications of World Wise Schools resources. Educators participated in hands-on activities and discussions to provide feedback and gain insight into the future of global education and Coverdell World Wise Schools.

Educators emphasized the importance of global education, recognizing that students need to develop 21st century skills that enable them to work together as global citizens to address challenges facing the world. These competencies include digital literacy, world language skills, and cultural understanding and appreciation. Conference participants brainstormed ideas for how to incorporate international perspectives into their curricula and generated suggestions for overcoming challenges. Ideas included promoting an interdisciplinary approach to bring global issues into other areas of study; providing problem-based activities that encourage collaboration to find solutions to real-world challenges; and using technology to connect with students in classrooms around the world.

Two activities during the conference encouraged educators to provide feedback to Coverdell World Wise Schools about our current resources and suggestions for how we can continue to support the needs of educators. Participants reported that our lesson plans and stories, publications, Correspondence Match and Speakers Match programs, and multimedia presentations are engaging, promote cultural awareness and understanding, and are useful across many areas of the curriculum. In the “Envisioning the Next Decade” activity, educators recommended that we focus on developing additional educational resources in multimedia formats that focus on global issues, service learning, and culture; offer more guidance in how to most effectively utilize our resources; and expand opportunities for communication and networking.

We invite you to listen to the keynote speakers and panelists and download their presentations, and read the feedback from your colleagues from the conference highlights below.

We appreciate the opportunity to receive thoughtful input from educators, and will use conference feedback to help us continue to bring useful resources to your classroom.

Q: How will you use what you’ve learned at the conference?

A: I will take back to my school new ideas about how to bring internationalism into the classroom. This year we are mapping a new curriculum, and so now is a perfect time to bring in global competency. Global issues should be part of the curriculum, not an add-on!

Elisa Banas, K-12 Educator

A: One of the things I want to take away from this is incorporating more global perspectives into the [Girl Scout] programming that we do. We have a really strong focus on service learning in our girls’ local communities, and I'm interested in finding ways to connect to work being done in global communities, to encourage the scouts to think about projects that might have a more globalized impact.

Kaitlin Hasseler, Girl Scouts

“The idea that we should be developing global competency is not new.” The importance of promoting international understanding in schools was articulated nearly 100 years ago. American educator Isaac Kandel (1925) advocated infusing international understanding into curriculum, teaching comparative geography, and addressing globally-relevant current events. Source: Dr. Fernando Reimers